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Judith Chapman's Five Greatest Y&R Moments

By  Posted: Sep 17, 2008

Portraying the divine, albeit slightly twisted, Gloria has been a dream-come-true gig for YOUNG AND RESTLESS' Judith Chapman, partly because of the wonderful character she plays, and partly because of the wonderful co-stars she's gotten to share the screen with. Take a walk down memory lane with Chapman as she recounts the top five moments from her tenure on the CBS soap.

VICTOR, VICTORIOUS

"There's always my Eric Braeden (Victor) story. It was my first day replacing the wonderful Joan Van Ark. Coming on-set, my very first scenes were with Eric. He was sitting in the Jabot conference room reading a script through his glasses that were nestled down on the tip of his nose. I was in full drag with the hair and blue eye shadow, wearing stilettos and leopard. I walked on-set and said, 'Oh, my God! My very first scenes with the Eric Braeden. I need a drumroll, please.' It broke the ice. Everybody laughed. I think Eric can be a little intimidating to some people, but I have been around for a little while. We went up, did our first scenes, and at the end of them, Eric took my hand and said, 'You're good. You're very, very good.' Then he turned to everybody on-set and said, 'Miss Chapman needs a drumroll, please.' We were instant friends. I've loved Eric and his wonderful sense of humor from day one. So it's always a pleasure working with him."

OUT ON HER EAR

"My No. 1 big emotional moment was when John found out who Gloria's sons were and threw her out of the house. It was so beautifully written and fairly early on in my days with the show. That story had been set up by my predecessor. Gloria had lied about Michael and Kevin being her sons. Then, over the course of events through Ashley, John found out. It was brilliant rage, anger and hurt played by both Jerry Douglas (ex-John) and me. Gloria pled with John to understand, but he threw her out of the house. Whenever I see Jerry, we still talk about those scenes and the ones, later, when John forgave Gloria. They were so beautiful and touching."

GOODBYE, MY LOVE

"John passing away was another huge, beautiful moment. I remember those final moments in the hospital, when Gloria crawled up in bed with him. At first, she wanted to keep him going on life support, while Jack wanted to let him go. There was this standoff, tests of will, because Gloria desperately wanted to hang onto her husband. Then, finally, she agreed with Jack. She came in and said, 'Let's unplug these machines and let him go.' Gloria's farewell to John was just heart-wrenching for me. Truly heart-wrenching. The backstory on that is that I had only been on the show for about seven months or so, and had worked so exclusively and intimately with Jerry. So I was agonizing over pains of abandonment and loss. I went through a big emotional letdown when Jerry left."

GETTING CREAMED

"I will always remember the scenes where William confronted Gloria about the face cream and busted her. He figured out that she was the one who tainted the cream, although she'd gone through all these gyrations to keep it from him. She even married him, so he wouldn't bust her, thinking that as her husband, he wouldn't testify against her. Their final confrontation was gut-wrenching work between Ted Shackelford (now Jeffrey) and me, and we did every single one of those scenes in one take. We did not speak to each other between the takes. We stayed so completely in character. At the end of the scenes, William had a stroke and fell to the floor. Then Michael came in and called an ambulance. By end of that day we were all dripping wet, wrung out. Ted and I just clung to each other. We hugged each other for a good minute, because it had been so truly and genuinely emotionally traumatic."

TUTTI FRUTTI WEDDING

"One of my more recent highlights on the show had to be getting married by Little Richard. Just coming on-set and being charmed and entertained by him. There were so many people on-set that day; his whole entourage. My fellow, James, came to the studio that day, and he never does that. He drove in from Palm Springs, because he is a huge Little Richard fan. So that was pretty big. James is so knowledgeable about music. He was over talking to Little Richard's entourage; the sons and the other members of the band. I was saying, 'James, watch me. We're doing the scenes.' He was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' He was more interested in talking to the entourage than watching me act."